Something is in the air. Whether it’s the generosity of holiday spirits or just people finally reaching a breaking point with the status quo, Americans are restless; we want change. And now, when people are paying attention to the plight of the struggling worker, is a rare opportunity to actually make things happen.

When I first joined Women Employed, there was a different kind of restlessness in the air. This was in the 70s, and women were getting fed up with those who outright opposed us getting into managerial and professional jobs. They said we weren’t capable, that we were only working for “pin money” anyway, and that we belonged at home.

WE was founded by women who wanted to change that world—and we succeeded. This year marked our 40th anniversary, and we have plenty to celebrate. In the past four decades, women have reshaped the American workplace. Our progress can be seen in laws against pregnancy discrimination and sexual harassment, family leave policies, and the breadth of opportunities available to women today, especially those with college degrees.

But celebrating women’s progress all too often obscures the reality that many women are still struggling just to get by. Although the advances of the past 40 years have given women many more opportunities, not all of us have been able to take advantage of them; millions have been left behind.

One way to think of it is to imagine that women today live on two different planets. On the first planet, women work in professional, managerial, or union jobs and earn salaries high enough to support a family. We have paid sick time, vacation time, health insurance. And we think of that as standard. Things aren’t perfect—women still struggle with glass ceilings, bad attitudes, and pay issues. But there’s some flexibility to deal with the demands of work and family, and women with education and advantages are doing better than they ever have before.

On the other planet are the millions of women who work hard in jobs we all depend on—jobs in restaurants, retail, call centers, day care centers, and the homes of our elderly parents. Their wages are far too low. 17 million women today—almost a third of the female workforce—are earning less than $12 an hour. They have no paid sick time or vacation time and limited, if any, access to benefits. They get little or no respect for the work they do, and their hard work doesn’t lift them out of poverty. Their struggles are often invisible or ignored, even though their poverty hurts our society’s children, our communities, and our economy.

This can’t continue. We have to say no to having one world of work for women with education and advantages and a vastly inferior world of work for others. We need to shine the spotlight on those low-income working women who work their days serving meals to others but can barely feed their own children, the women who take care of our bedridden family members but don’t get paid sick days themselves.

This won’t be easy. The fact that we’re still fighting some of the same fights as when WE was founded (read: the wage gap barely changed in the last decade) shows just how long-term this struggle is. But the last 40 years offers plenty of inspiration to face future obstacles. In the 70s, we were dealing with problems no one had even given names to—sexual harassment, gender wage gap, wage theft. Today, we don’t only have words for these things, we’ve put laws in place to protect women against them. Time and again, we’ve made history. But there’s plenty left to be made.

Comments 1

donna gutman — December 9, 2013

What a fabulous article - working women orbiting in 2 completely disparate paths in the same universe. The most important task for professional women - look down and raise awareness of this chasm. All women live under the same sky and share the same needs. Support great organizations like Women Employed in changing the landscape for these underserved women who are indeed the working poor.

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About Girl w/ Pen

Girl w/ Pen, founded by Deborah Siegel, publicly and passionately dispels modern myths concerning gender, encouraging other feminist scholars, writers, and thinkers to do the same.
The views expressed in posts are those of the columnists and do not represent Girl w/ Pen at large.